PixelVixen707

You really get to know someone when you see how dumb they look taking a fall. Take Travis Touchdown. Most games save their heroes from any embarrassment; Travis humiliates himself again and again, whether he’s getting a knee to the crotch from a lolita with a baseball bat, or throwing himself off his macho doof-bike and landing in a spineless lump. A former Mexican wrestler and current motel roach, fanboy and putz, he cocoons himself in pop culture fantasies and otaku dreams. All his jobs are part-time; if he ever lost his virginity, he didn’t learn much from it. And when he wins an eBay auction for a real-life lightsaber, he thinks he’s on the path to sure fame and fortune: he can rise to the top of the United Assassins Association, beating ten ranked killers to earn the top spot.

And everyone rips him off along the way.

I was skeptical at first about No More Heroes. I had the feeling I was playing it just to talk about it at parties. Designer and auteur Suda51 has that effect. Comparisons to El Topo and junk culture writ large put No More Heroes on a shelf at Mondo Kim’s beside the hippest, hardest to find cult culture – so much cooler than BoingBoing, so much darker than BioShock. It’s exaggerated in all the right ways – like when you swing the Wiimote for a killing blow and your victim explodes not just with blood, but with a torrent of coins like a hit on a slot machine. Thanks to the Association, murders are sanctioned, if not exactly legal – but oh wait, the law is nowhere in sight: it’s just you, that dumb bike, and the dingy town of Santa Destroy.

And in spite of its name, the town is very dingy. Half the game, you’re becoming a star assassin; the other half, you bum around town, scraping together the money for the entry fees and gear you’ll need along the way. And it’s in the most boring details that No More Heroes really shines.

Everything that “regular” critics hate about this game, I love. I love that Travis is reduced to pumping gas or picking up garbage to earn the cash for his next fight. I love that the video store has to remind him to return his pornos. I love to watch Silvia, his gorgeous blonde temptress, lead him on through every fight with the promise of glimpsing the top of her long, limber legs. I don’t think I’m spoiling much to tell you that Travis never gets the girl – or any girl. And you already know why: he’s a loser, top to tail.

Sometimes we celebrate losers, or cheer when the underdog prevails. But No More Heroes is more honest. Travis’s world is a game that’s rigged against him. He’s the guy who loses his job and then buys a handful of lottery tickets.  He’s the girl who thinks the right lay will change her world. He’s tricked, demeaned, and always, always put firmly in his place. The spectacular violence of his ranking matches gets him up every morning, but the crappy jobs that pay for it will never go away.

I’ve been warned not to read too much into the ending (or rather, endings) of the game: the last-minute reveals are just more fantasy and drama, and nothing gets him closer to resolution. Personally, I think the climactic final match exists only in his head. But even if it’s real within the story, it settles nothing. Travis doesn’t learn anything. He’ll never grow up. He lives in poverty with toys for companions. And there’s a little bit of him in all us otaku, and Suda51 will never, ever bore us with his pity.